


Natural Blues

by wajjs



Series: Time after Time [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DC Elseworlds, DCU, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Robin 3000 (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Space, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, M/M, Outer Space, but soft, immortal!jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24339448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wajjs/pseuds/wajjs
Summary: Thomas Wayne, last of the Robins, looks at him with such candor Jason believes his eyes might as well be made of fire, and he himself is made of wood.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Tom Wayne (Robin 3000), Tom Wayne/Jason Todd
Series: Time after Time [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1485956
Kudos: 22





	Natural Blues

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm the only one invested in this ship that I also happened to create all on my own by the grace of lack of sleep, BUT HERE. THERE'S MORE. Someone please like them so I have a partner to cry about them with, _please_
> 
> Also: before this one, I recommend reading at least [a little time with you is all that i get](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23292313) from the Time after Time series since this is like a missing scene from that fic.

[ **N** atural Blues ](https://youtu.be/z3YMxM1_S48)

Space is cold. It's always cold, ready to freeze, and nothing will ever change that. Inherently, there is chill, one that gets inside through his eyes and rests deep in his soul. He's used to the sensation, so accostumed to it, from all his travels decades before—yet still to this day he wonders: how did the Lanterns not go crazy here? What did they do to cling onto the warmth of home?

Past all the armor, energy and protection, when they all go down to the bare bone: how did they do it? 

He should've asked before they all burnt out.

The thing is, in Tom's arms, Jason can forget for singular moments. It doesn't last long and the efficacy often varies, but it's true, it's real: in Tom's arms, Jason is warm. It is not all that keeps driving him closer to the other, not at all, but it's still part of it. It's mixed with the longing and the loneliness. Both things he has in spades.

Jason sits by the viewport and feels a bitter pang of guilt. Like the stars outside the protective glass and the shield are judging him. Like they have the eyes of all the ones he has lost. He desperately wants to smoke, but he's run out of cigarettes and he doesn't have more half-crushed packages lying around.

Maybe he's going nuts with withdrawal. Maybe he just feels like shit. 

Thomas Wayne, last of the Robins, looks at him with such candor Jason believes his eyes might as well be made of fire, and he himself is made of wood. Because truth is, beneath all the doubt and deprication, truth is he does care for him. He cares for Thomas in a way that resembles too much how he cared for the big man himself, all that time ago in the far far past.

It's not love. It can't be that. Because he's used it all up in people no one from this age remembers. Because he gave it away for it to rest next to all those graves.

Tom still fits so nicely by his side. It's such a troublesome thing, one he can't share with anyone but the universe. He wants to say: don't mold yourself to me. When you're gone, my side will bleed and I will not die, but I will cease.

Yet Tom sees right through it, goes to the core of the issue, all natural and painted blue:

Denial that comes from pain. Pain that comes from fear. Fear that is born from loneliness.

His kisses can't dig deep enough to get rid of all the lingering rot. He still tries and tries and tries, tells Jason in a voice Jason will always remember:

"Even if we all die. You have been loved here. Don't make yourself forget that."

The machine in the general's ship is truly a beauty. It blows up marvelously all the same. The energy and heat waves send him backwards in a way that makes Jason think he's traveling through time, makes him wish he could go back for a second to properly say goodbye. Tom is going to be wrecked by this. Tom is going to grow from this.

The walls of the ship crack and split with the explosion and he's thrown into the innate coldness of space. He's freezing, he can feel himself dying. Maybe this time it will be definite.

He's not awake when he's found.

But he'll wake up, he will. His time is yet to be used up.


End file.
